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Monday, 10 February 2014

Brazilian Polish Swatches - L'Apogee

Hello there Ladies I'm back!

I apologise for yet another very long absence and welcome you to my first post of 2014!! (very very late I know, but better late than never, right?)

I don't want to bore you with a million excuses for why I've been gone so long, but to put it briefly, I have been travelling A LOT the last couple of months, I've barely been at home at all, and as you may know I am here in Brazil visiting my inlaws for the first time, obviously they want to make the most of the time I have here, especially as I have less than a month left before I leave again! So I'm afraid I've had to prioritise family time over blog time! I have missed my blog and painting my nails often, but it has to be said, the times I have managed to paint my nails, it's been nice to wear what I've done for more than 48 hours!

Now that I'm back it's time to fulfill my promise of showing you all some of the fantastic polishes from here in Brazil, and while all the travelling has kept me away from my blog, it has at least given me plenty of polish shopping opportunities and I've managed to collect rather a substantial stash of beauties! I've got almost 40 so far (still got a month left for shopping too!) so basically all you'll be getting for the next 3 weeks is swatches of gorgeous Brazilian polishes. (You poor, poor girls!)

Before I crack on with the polishes though, I would just like to let you all know that tomorrow I will be going polish shopping for you! I'm going to be hosting a giveaway of Brazilian polishes for one lucky winner, some of which will be a brand I love, that as far as I am aware (and I searched pretty hard!) are not available for sale internationally! How's that for an exclusive prize my lovelies? Definitely keep your eye out for that!

Now for the polish! Today I'm going to be showing you a brand that I had not heard of before I got here (obviously once I found out I was coming here I jumped straight online to find all the best polishes I needed to add to my wishlist!) this was not one of them as I didn't come across it anywhere, which surprises me because they are great quality polishes, cheap, and with some great colours and finishes! Definitely one of my faves! This is also the brand that I mentioned for the giveaway, that is not available for sale internationally!

The brand name is L'Apogee, and I have 4 polishes to show you today (all glitters!), and another 4 tomorrow! So let's begin shall we?!

These first two polishes are from the 'Fashion' collection, and in 2 of my favourite colours, purple and green.

This is 'Liberty' and is a lilac shimmer base with small pieces of blue and purple glitter.

As we are dealing with fine glitter here I have taken a macro shot for you, though I apologise for the medium quality, it wasn't until after I'd done the pics and taken the polish off that I realised my macro settings on the camera were not quite right, but you can still see pretty well though.

The next polish pic is 'Maxi' and is a light minty green shimmer base with small darker green glitter, followed by a macro of it.

To be honest, I liked these two more in the bottle than I did on my nails, but they still be mighty pretty!

The next two polishes are from the 'Fantastic Glitters' collection, and I LOVE them!

First up is 'Azul Magnifico' ('Magnificent Blue', my portuguese is coming along nicely so I will always try to translate the names for you where it's necessary!) and this a light sky blue crelly with black micro dots, and small blue and magenta glitter pieces. Again, as we're dealing with fine glitter I've included macros of both of these polishes for you too.

The next polish in this collection is 'Nude Sorpeendente' (Surprising Nude, as if you couldn't guess it!) and is similar to the first, its a neutral peachy tinted crelly with black micro dots, and small orange and magenta glitter pieces.

As far as the formula of all these polishes goes, I have absolutely no complaints. Despite being pretty sheer the standard for this brand is 3 coats for good opacity, which I personally think is pretty good, especially for crelly's! The formula was a nice consistency and glided on the nail quite smoothly without streaking or lumping, and they have pretty good durability too.

One thing I have noticed, and this is for all the Brazilian brand polishes I have tried so far actually, not just this brand, is that the drying time is a bit lengthier than what I'm used to, so you would really need a good quick drying top coat just to make sure you don't mess it up easily while it's curing.

So what do you think of these polishes then? Pretty enough to include in the giveaway you reckon? I have 4 more from this brand to show you tomorrow, and those are even prettier than these! So stay tuned for a sneak peek of what might be included in my giveaway prize pack!